Meeting Your Meeting Expectations
"To get something done a meeting should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent."
~Author unknown One of the complaints I hear most often is about the number of meetings people attend during any given week. It isn't only the quantity, but the duration and ineffectiveness that seem to cause problems. Conducting effective meetings is part of practicing effective time management and something we cover during my workshops, so I thought a recap of some meeting guidelines would be helpful: Before the meeting? Create and distribute an agenda. If others are involved, get their contributions by asking them to provide 3 things: the topic, the time needed to discuss it and the purpose of the item. Create a level of expectation by explaining that without this information the you have no way of setting and reaching the Agenda items in a timely manner. Identify specific actions and outcomes for Agenda inclusion because this will determine who should be attend. Try to keep the number of participants between 4 and 7. State when the meeting will begin and end and try to honor those times. During the meeting? Stay on topic. Assigning a willing facilitator can help keep the group remain focused. The facilitator can also be charged with reminding participants when comments are 'repetitive' rather than 'additive' to the discussion. At the end of the meeting assign action items and deadlines-it helps staff remain attentive and reinforces accountability. "Do you know your next step?" is a great question to ask in order to give attendees the opportunity to request and receive clarification on action items. After the meeting? Have an "Action" follow-up sheet available by the end of the day. This shows the date of the meeting, tasks, responsible parties, deadline date and a follow-up date. Assign a meeting coordinator to follow-through with the commitments made and noted on this "Action" sheet. You can find a sample in our website's library. The objective is to gain a reputation for having fewer, more effective and efficient meetings. Attendees will welcome the opportunity to share information and participate when they feel they have been heard and they know their time hasn't been wasted. Copyright 2002 Cynthia Kyriazis. All rights reserved. Cynthia Kyriazis is a Professional Organizer, trainer, consultant, speaker, coach and author with over 20 years management experience in multi-unit corporations. She is President of Organize it, Inc., an organizational consulting firm serving Fortune 500 clients since 1995. Cynthia has worked with over 150 companies and hundreds of professionals to help improve performance in the areas of time, information, space and electronic file management. Cynthia has appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Kansas City Star and the Legal Intelligencer. She currently serves as Secretary on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), member of International Society for Performance Improvement ? Kansas City chapter (ISPI-KC) and consultant to the American Coaching Association.
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We went on to agree that the common pattern these days seemed to be for the department star performer to be promoted from contributor, to team leader, to manager in seemingly record time. We agreed that new managers have difficulty moving from the contributor to the manager role because no one is willing to spend the time and energy to coach them through the various hurdles that new managers and leaders face. We agreed that this lack of training never seemed to lower the expectations of the manager, just the performance.
Then we disagreed, strongly. What caused the disagreement? The
concept was micro-management. My friend explained to me that she has "coached" many employees recently and that many of them complained about one particular manager who was micro-managing them. She told me that she helps the employees understand and come to grips with "their problem". "You're not going to be able to change that manager, she explained to me, "so you've got to change the employees". She explains to them that if they are being micro-managed, there's probably a reason for it. They are probably doing something wrong. If they just identify that problem and improve, their manager will stop the micro-management. "The employees need to improve themselves. It's as simple as that."
I wish my life was as simple as that.
She acknowledges that with that many employees complaining that
it's likely the manager is the problem. But changing the manager is too much trouble, she says, so let's tell the employees it's their fault.
While it is true that it is sometimes necessary to micro-manage
people, her explanation makes little sense to me. You might micro-manage an employee if their performance is lacking. Or because the project they are working on is very high visibility and any chance of error must be minimized. But when a number of employees are complaining about the same manager micro-managing them it implies one of two things.
Either this manager:
1. Has a lot of problem employees and needs to start weeding them out, or
2. This manager does not know how to let go and properly
delegate to their staff.
Excessive micro-management is not the sign of a healthy manager.
When someone is constantly micro-managing their staff it's generally their problem, not the employees.
If you are micro-managing your staff, refusing to delegate routine, and not so routine tasks to them for completion, then you are setting yourself up for trouble. Have you ever heard yourself say, "I would delegate this to someone else, but it's just as easy to do it myself"? Or maybe you say, "This task is too complicated to delegate. I have to make sure it's done right."
If so, I hope you like your job. Because you aren't going anyplace higher. Delegation can be difficult to learn because it looks like a huge risk and a huge leap of faith. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are techniques that you can learn that will help you delegate and get you out of the detail. And you have to get out of the detail if you really want to be an executive.
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